“The UK is at the top of the one league table we don’t want to be winning.” That’s according to FairFuelUK founder Peter Carroll, after the UK was named as having the highest average diesel prices in the EU during November.

At 141.1 pence per litre, not only is it the highest, but 58 percent of that price is made up by tax. (It would have been even more if the January fuel duty increase hadn’t been scrapped thanks to FairFuelUK.)

Petrol prices are just the fifth highest in the EU, but unfortunately the majority of the transport sector uses diesel and as their prices increase, so do the prices of everything else. Food, clothes, everything: it all needs transporting and that’s becoming more and more expensive.

However, the demand in fuel has actually fallen by almost eight percent in the past four years. Despite this prices continue to climb. What other market could completely ignore the laws of supply and demand in this way?

Recently farmers have been told they will be allowed to use cut price red diesel in tractors and 4x4s if they go on public roads to rescue those in floods or help gritting. Normally red diesel, which carries a reduced tax levy, can only be used in fields, but we’ve been fighting for some time to allow truckers to use it too. They are supporting the UK and its economy just as the farmers are; why should they not benefit from the lower tax?

January’s fuel duty hike may have been scrapped, but the fight for fairer fuel is still very much a burning issue.